


perennial

by lucy_blue



Series: Harry Potter & Death [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Cthulhu Mythos, Gen, Lovecraftian, Master of Death Harry Potter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-21
Updated: 2019-02-21
Packaged: 2019-11-01 23:12:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17876564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucy_blue/pseuds/lucy_blue
Summary: Tom Riddle flees from Death, and Death follows after at His own pace.





	perennial

_“That is dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons even death may die.”_

**flight**  
_noun_

1\. A journey made in air or through space  
2\. An extravagant or far fetched idea  
3\. The action of fleeing or attempting to flee

from

**death**  
_noun_

1\. The destruction or permanent end of something  
2\. The personification of the power that holds the end of life, often represented in art or literature as a skeleton or an old man holding a scythe  
3\. Harry Potter

**0\. and that is not dead which can eternal lie-**

Within the train station, one unknowable creature slumbers on a bench, unheeding of the passing pedestrians and trains. 

**1\. and things have learned to walk that ought to crawl**

Gently, gently, Tom Riddle’s slender fingers clasp it, bone white against its darkness. The sacred, accursed, book, the unmentionable, the notorious. The _Necronomicon_ of the most disturbed Abdul Alhazred, of which he only heard gibbering whispers of, in the grimey yellowing columns of the darkest books a sly seeker can find in the forgotten, forbidden corners of Hogwarts’ archaic library. Now here, held reverently in his hands. A mad smile already tugs at his pale lips. 

**2\. for their marvels are strange and terrific**

The labor is long, and fruitless. The blue-skinned baby lies unmoving, cooling despite the warmth of mother’s arms. It is only when every drop of life is gone from the little body that Harry Potter bends back His head and takes His first, wailing breath. 

**3\. black seas of infinity**

he devours this most decadent book as he has devoured all else, with the same glee as he read and understood the truths of non-euclidean mathematics found within _true_ Arithmancy, the same glee with which he slowly learned the language of the ugly-beautiful things living in the deeps of the Black Lake, the same glee with which he scoured the Room of Secret Things for those secrets most rotten… Tom Riddle, one will find, has nigh unending glee for certain sorts of things. 

**4\. happy the town… whose wizards are all ashes**

A shadow falls over the most reassuringly normal neighborhood of Privet Drive. A babe in a basket, darkening the door-stoop of Number Four. In earlier ages, a babe of the type quickly, and wisely, condemned as a changeling by the village wise woman. A babe of the type that cannot be forgotten, even once quickly, and wisely, hidden in the downstairs cupboard under the stairs, and padlocked in by the strongest iron lock to be found. 

**5\. voyage far**

he cannot merely _know_ , he must _understand_ , if there be any understanding that one bound by such mortal form as he is can find in the maundering, spiraling truths so written within That book- 

**6\. walk serene and primal**

The babe grows into a boy, a boy of skeletal proportions, of vividly green eyes, of wild dark hair like reaching shadows. A boy of the type meant not to walk free, and yet walk free He does, for iron does not hurt Him, and words are as if air against one such as He. In the most archaic corners of their minds, the other residents of that most reassuringly normal neighborhood scream _‘where is the wise woman?’_

**7\. beyond the bounds of infinity**

he begins to know, and understand, and he thinks, he thinks he is either succumbing to madness, or he thinks that perhaps he is not, perhaps he is stepping _beyond_

**8\. may not behold the hand that smites**

His dominion over the neighborhood is a nigh unquestionable one, and the attempted regicide, the foolish work of the old 'rightful' king. He dies, and rises, and goes on in from recess, and does not seem to notice the teacher’s shuddering horror. The old king, that rapidly disappeared spare son of His peripheral court at Number Four, is not spoken of again. 

**9\. harnessed the shadows**

he gathers his followers; the strong seeking the stronger, those as degenerate and debased as he, those of a more sadistic type, and those creatures lurking in the darkness who long for a bit more space to stretch their many strange limbs. 

**10\. they walk unseen and foul**

He needs no aide to find the forgotten and hidden places, for those places are those best known to Him. The grimey, decayed residences seem to press back from the street at His step, and the cobblestones bow and shiver beneath Him; even light and color seems to flee at the hint of His presence. The shopkeepers offer their tribute without eye contact. 

**11\. and drawn [up] daemons**

The slender white hand strokes the etching of the creature of eldritch, aeonic dread with a sort of debased affection. The voice speaks, and the earth opens to receive him. 

**12\. as a foulness shall ye know them**

Shuddering, the professor drops the hat upon the small head with those dark tendrils that sway softly in wind not felt nor seen by any but He. The ancient hat writhes in agony upon the placid head, and screams, “ALL IS HIS!” And He swears not fealty to a House, but the Houses to He. 

**13\. the sealed tower long garlanded with seaweed and barnacles**

And he enters that forgotten temple and kneels before the strange statue found therein, and wakes that which slumbers beneath the surface of those murky waters. 

**14\. knows the gate… is the gate…**

That most ancient chamber opens before Him and that which had broke fast on the subjects of His dominion surrenders at a single word, and that book, that pale imitation of the dread _Necronomicon_ , is only for the moths and rot to devour. 

**15\. ...that stride from world to world to sow death and madness**

And, rebuked, he claws his way back to the normal spheres of what might be loosely termed as existence- and he searches, seeks that which he desires in all of the dark places, and finds those which would grant him mastery over death, and, secure in the knowledge of his future victory, gathers his followers around him, and journeys to assert that mastery. 

**16\. man is [n]either the oldest [n]or the last… master**

And He sees that His foolish prey holds His trinkets and thinks that thereby holds His power, and is thus compelled to remind His prey of the truth of the matter. 

**17\. whereby the spheres meet**

The fragments of what had been, once, a man are forever strewn upon the tracks over which those aeonic trains race to destinations unknown and unthinkable. 

**18\. -and with strange aeons even death may die.**

A most impossible prospect, if the opinion of any person of true learning is asked. Even if one day dethroned, only from the shadows will He rule; yet of course, the Green-Eyed One finds Himself rather enjoying some room to stretch His multitude of unseen limbs, and so it is that Hogwarts finds herself His perennial highland court, from which for eternity He rules, the Elder God of Death. 


End file.
